Book Blurb: Cairn: A Dragon Memoir by Rebecca Ferrell Porter

Cairn: A Dragon Memoir by Rebecca Ferrell Porter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This turned out to be the second book of a series, but was easy enough to follow without knowing anything about the first book. It's a light, easy read with some engaging characters and intriguing world-building -- enough that I'm now curious about the first book.

The world presented here is a neat little subversion of normal expectations for a fantasy. Fairies are presented as aggressors; trolls are decent folk wanting to be left to themselves; and dragons are a noble race who have overcome their baser instincts.

The one drawback which kept me from fully enjoying the book was that it needs a more thorough editing. The typos and wayward apostrophes were just prevalent enough to distract me from the story being told.

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Blogging: The Spanish Harlem Orchestra

When the Spanish Harlem Orchestra came to town for the Burlington Discover Jazz Festival, I did a pair of posts for the Flynn Center blog.

One before the show; www.flynncenter.org/blog/2015/06/spanish-harlem-orchestra-preview  ...
...and one after;  www.flynncenter.org/blog/2015/06/review-spanish-harlem-orchestra.

A Short Story Published

The online literary magazine WritingRaw.com has published my short story, The Virgin in the Window.

You can check it out here: http://writingraw.com/Fiction.html#Becoming%20to%20Beheld

Blogging: Anything Goes!

It's not a bad gig, really -- I occasionally write blog posts for the Flynn Center (our most prominent local performing-arts venue), and they give me free tickets for the shows I blog about.

Most recently we got to see the one-night-only performance of the Broadway revival of Anything Goes! My pre-show writeup is here:
http://www.flynncenter.org/blog/2015/04/heaven-knows/

and the after-show was just posted here:
http://www.flynncenter.org/blog/2015/05/utterly-delightful/

Book Blurb: Frances and Bernard, by Carlene Bauer

Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I picked this up to start reading, I didn't realize it was an epistolary novel. Not generally my favorite form of literature. But somehow this immediately took hold, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A large part, I think, is the characters. Frances and Bernard are exactly the sort of people I would love to engage with in this kind of long-term philosophical exchange. Based very loosely on Flannery O'Connor and Robert Lowell, these characters delight in sharing all manner of philosophy, theology, wit, and well-written correspondence that is exactly the kind of thing I'd get into myself. I have, in fact, had a few such epistolary acquaintances over the years, and this reminded me of the best of those times.

So it drew me right in. And these characters and their writings kept me engaged throughout the twists and turns of their lives. Really a delightful and engaging read.

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